Contents

Icon of Madonna di Sant’ Alessio (Madonna of St. Alexis; Madonna of Intercession)

The Chapel of the Most Holy Sacrament and Madonna di Sant'Alessio in Basilica of the Saints Bonifacio and Alexis

Founded between the 3rd and 4th centuries, it was restored in 1216 by Pope Honorius III (some columns of his building survive in the present building's eastern apse); in 1582; in the 1750s by Tommaso De Marchis (his main altar survives); and between 1852 and 1860 by the Somaschi, which congregation still serves it as a rectory church. The 16th century style facade, elaborated from the De Marchis phase, is built onto the medieval-style quadriportico.

The church has a Romanesquecampanile. On the south side of the nave is the funerary monument Eleonora Boncompagni Borghese of 1693, to a design of Giovan Contini Batiste, and in the south transept the Chapel of Charles IV of Spain, with the icon Madonna di sant'Alessio. It is an Edessa icon of the Intercession of the Madonna, the Heavenly Mediatress (Madonna dell'Intercessione) dating from the 12-13th centuries, thought to have been painted by St Luke the Evangelist and brought from the East by St Alexius. The church also contains the tombstone of Peter Savelli (of the same family as Pope Honorius III).